HimitsuBako
by chezchuckles
Summary: Himitsu-Bako is a Japanese Personal Secret Box. Set after Headhunters, although I've seen no spoilers for anything upcoming. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Himitsu-Bako  
**

* * *

story idea by Janyl, who left it as a review without signing in, so I couldn't even thank you for such a great concept

* * *

_Himitsu-Bako_ is the 19th century Japanese puzzle box called The Personal Secret Box. It can only be opened by a complicated or obscure series of moves. This can be as frustrating as a squeeze in a small, sensitive spot or a series of twists lasting for as long as 1500 movements.

* * *

_1. I wish wasn't such a coward when it comes to him._

* * *

Kate Beckett rubs her thumb over the inside of her crossed arm, studies him from across the bullpen. She's fresh from court, her mouth still full of serious and sober facts, her body thrumming with anxious responsibility. A man's life is at stake in that courtroom, no matter that Beckett knows he's guilty, and she wants him to be held accountable, but blindly, with the facts.

Justice.

She cherishes her time in court.

The men and women so formal in the jury box, the chrome bar that serves as a footrest, the swinging wooden door that separates the gallery from the court, the two wide tables placed strategically - the prosecution across from the judge, the defense across from the jury. She stands when the jury enters, watches their faces when she gives her testimony, mentally reviews the things the prosecutor needs to hit on.

She might have been a lawyer.

This is her life now. The precinct and her team, the dead and their silenced voices, the man standing at her desk at this moment, the finger of one hand touching the papers, sifting through them as if looking for a clue.

She strides forward, shreds of the court day still wrapped around her like a tattered coat. He hears her heels and lifts his head, for a moment all the old warmth suffusing his face before it melts away.

Polite smile, a nod of his head, the banked embers in his eyes. She smiles anyway, can't help it, all of it rising to the surface.

"Hey, Castle. What are you doing here?" Deja vu swamps her and she mentally stumbles, thrown back to that day a week ago when he came looking - not for her, but for Slaughter.

He holds out coffee wordlessly, and she takes it, curling her fingers around its warmth. And it is warm - hot actually - which means he just got here.

"I heard you were out of court."

Kate glances over his shoulder to Esposito, who is hanging out and trying to look like he's not also eavesdropping shamelessly. She grins, suppressses it to look up at Castle.

"Yeah. You want to get lunch? I'm starving."

"You haven't eaten?"

She shakes her head and leans past him to grab the post-it note she left for herself on the desk, feels her arm brush his chest. He gives a little sigh and steps back.

"Lunch," he says finally. "Yeah."

With the reminder to herself in her hand, she smiles at him again, grateful to have this, however weak and maimed it may be right now.

* * *

Kate studies the message she wrote to herself as they step onto the elevator. It's calming now in a way it didn't use to be. Calming because she thinks she's doing something about it, finally.

She's been tempted to write it on her hand in permanent marker - she has, actually. She has. More than once. It washes off entirely too soon. She doesn't need another tattoo - though she wouldn't want this stained on her flesh anyway. She writes it down on a post-it note and carries it around with her and hopes that she gets the chance to prove herself wrong.

_Coward._

She should have written more, an explanation, (like _when it comes to him_) but it's too much for a note that everyone will see-

He grabs her hand and pries the post-it out of her grip; she gasps and reaches for it back, can't catch it in time.

Castle gives her a soft chuckle, a bit strained, but he's obviously trying again. Trying. Better than the not trying. Better than the actively avoiding her. "Coward? You gonna tape this to Espo's back or something? I thought school yard bullying was beneath you, Beckett."

She shakes her head, takes it from him, curls her fingers around it again. "No."

"Did someone leave that - no, it's your handwriting. What is that about?"

She shrugs. "Just a reminder."

"Oh, a play or something?"

A play? This isn't a play; she's got no deceitful motive-

"Oh, you mean Noel Coward?" she says, her words rushing out on a relieved laugh. "No. Not a play."

He's studying her as the elevator sinks. "You're not a coward, Kate."

It takes everything in her not to react to that statement, spoken softly and with such insistence.

If only he knew. If he knew she'd heard him, if he knew how she couldn't and still can't face him, if he knew that every single day she's afraid he'll disappear, abandon her like he has this whole-

_Oh._

Oh my God.

That's what this is?

"Castle," she gasps, reaches for his forearm with her hand, gripping him tightly. The post-it note crinkles between them, caught between their skins. "Castle." She can barely breathe.

Oh, he knows. He knows.

"Is this - are you having a panic attack? Beckett, breathe."

She shakes her head but squeezes him tighter. "Not. Not a panic attack. I just - figured it out."

"You wrote it, right?"

Kate's anxiety breaks in a laugh and she sucks in a shallow breath, finds her chest easing. Somehow, Castle knows and he - oh, the damn interview room, shit, ah, she said - what did she say? something about being close to dying and knowing how it felt, and oh, damn, yes _remembering every second._

And he heard that.

Secondhand, basically.

So this is - this is the fault of her lack of courage, her failure to be courageous. Her cowardice.

_Coward._

There is a great deal to sift through, to think about - she needs her therapist right this second, stat, but she can't do that, can't disappear on him now, because he's trying again.

He wasn't. And now he is again.

She lets go of his forearm, realizing she's probably bruising him, and then finds her train of thought interrupted by the elevator doors opening onto the garage.

Castle follows her out as she struggles to capture the same urgency, her hands tightening in fists, paper crinkling-

_Coward._

"Let's get lunch to go," she says suddenly.

"Oh? Need to get back?"

She shakes her head, orders her thoughts. "No. I want to take you somewhere."

She feels him reach for her, stop her with a tug of his fingers around her wrist. She turns and looks back at him, her keys already in her hand.

"You want to take me where?"

"A place. I need to show you. Say some stuff."

He blinks and something akin to a smile lightens his face, like a polaroid picture showing up all faint and yellowy on the developing paper.

"Okay," he says finally. "Lunch to go."

* * *

She lets him eat in her car. Amazing. Not that she usually won't, but they're scarfing down tacos - the messy ones - and he's got a chili cheese burrito on top of that. It drips down his fingers and puddles in the bowl of his palm. He has to keep finding new napkins to clean himself off.

She does give him the occasional trepidatious look, apprehension carved into the very lines of her bones. Somehow, he gets the feeling it has nothing to do with potential cheesy grease stains on her upholstery.

It's just a cop car, after all.

(CIA retro-fitted though.)

Still. "Your car still smells briny," he grunts, wrinkling his nose.

"I think it's all in your head," she shoots back immediately, old habit. He's glad for that. He wants to get back to their latest algorithm of normal. Beckett and Castle version 4.3.7 or something.

(Not 4.7.1 - that one's bad. Corrupted. Lots of shoddy code and no patches yet made available.)

"It's not in my head," he goes along. "I can smell seaweed and mermaids and city pollution. I bet radioactive waste has seeped into the chassis-"

"Seep? Into upholstery maybe. But you said chassis. How is it possible for anything to seep into a metal framework, Castle? Poor diction. You should know better."

He wants to fist pump, he's so happy with that. Version 4.3.7 rocks. "My bad. Radioactive waste has inundated-"

"To flood? The car was flooded, but radioactive waste would radiate or irradiate-"

"I don't think that fits either. Or well, technically maybe it does, but you can't say both radioactive and also radiate at the same time. Repetitious."

He glances at her as he says it, finds that deep, soul-satisfied smile only hinting at her lips but illuminating her eyes. He's missed that. It feels good to make her smile again.

Partners.

"So where are we going? We've been driving almost an hour."

"Oh," she breathes out, gives him another anxious glance. Back to that again. "I should have warned you. Do you need to call home? It's another fifteen minutes, and then getting home again too-"

"I'm good. I'll text if it looks like we're - going long."

A flash of something across her face that he would swear was heat - would have sworn, in the past. But he's been mixing her signals lately - he's all messed up. The love stuff taints his reading. He can't afford to make a mistake now.

"Did you say my car smells like mermaids?" she asks suddenly, turning to him with a little laugh.

He feels opened up before her at that look. If he thought he was mixing things up before, he's epically failing now. He can't see her looking at him like that and think anything other than _She's in this with me. We're in this._

She's not. She's not. She cares; she needs his friendship and support; she supports him, has his back, won't let him down. But in this? No.

No. He needs to stop his heart. Before it runs away with him again.

* * *

When she pulls up outside her father's cabin, her hands are sticky with sweat on the steering wheel. She - she is really doing this.

This is where it starts.

"Where are we?"

"My father's cabin."

She hears his rush of breath out, the echo of silence, waits but never hears him draw a breath back in. Kate turns her head towards the cabin, stares it down, then gets out of the car.

"You coming?" she says, glancing over her shoulder at him.

"Yeah, yeah," he hurries, coming out after her, his face twisted in confusion, surprise, worry. All those things. She can see them.

Kate starts for the cabin, fiddles with her key ring until she can touch the smooth, cold metal she needs, the key she knows so well as she mounts the four steps to the porch. She didn't tell her father she was coming out here, but she sent him a text while they waited on their lunch.

Castle is at her back when she goes inside, his curiosity practically shouting. She leads him on a tour, kitchen, breakfast nook, living room, then she takes him down the back hallway.

"This is where you were all summer," he says softly as she opens the door.

"This is it," she affirms.

He steps up to her side as he takes it in: the sheer white curtains over the double window, the writing desk pushed up against the opposite wall to catch the light, the narrow, twin bed covered in the fading blue quilt a great-aunt made fifty years ago or more. It's entirely unremarkable.

"All summer," he murmurs, as if talking to himself.

She steps inside and he comes after her, like he's attached, turns around slowly to get a look at the small room.

"I did something this summer," she starts, hesitates because she wants the right words. "Therapist's idea. A way to figure it out, heal."

She can hear him turn sharply towards her, but she can't look at him. Instead she goes to the writing desk and opens the middle drawer. From inside, she pulls out a puzzle box - wooden, with a kind of parquet along the sides and top in various stains, complicated and held together. She has to slide a piece towards her like a Jenga game, then a piece at the back, then the bottom slips forward, and finally she can slide the top halfway open.

A Japanese puzzle box, given to her long ago by her mother.

The jumble of tightly folded paper still brings saliva to her mouth, like she might throw up. All her secrets.

She lifts her head and catches his curious, fascinated gaze, holds the box out, but takes it back, shaking her head. "Wait. Before I - before you start. Maybe just one a day. So you won't - it might overwhelming."

"What is this, Kate?" he says softly, regarding her. But he takes it from her, takes it off her hands.

"Secrets," she says finally, her heart vibrating in her throat, tense on a string.

His face goes blank; something of the weight of this must sink into him. "Secrets," he echoes flatly.

"You should read them. Some are - a lot are - written to you," she gets out. She's sweating like crazy, her hands trembling. She can't read the look on his face, but she needs to, needs to know what he's thinking because it is eating her up-

He is studying the box in his hand.

She has to - she needs to explain maybe. "The note I carry with me - that's one of them. One of the ones I don't like so much. How I've been a coward. Was all summer and now-"

"Now you're not," he says, quietly, lifts his head to look at her.

"Open one," she says back, insistently. She wants to get it over with.

All the notes are torn from notebook or computer paper and wadded up tightly, folded over and over. It takes him a moment, trying to get it unfolded one-handed, but even as she reaches out for the box to hold it, he shakes his head and tucks it up under his arm, all awkward pieces and half-opened, as if he's loath to let it go.

She waits, hands at her sides, guts churning, telling herself to breathe, telling herself to calm down, she's an NYPD detective, she has a gun, and for the love of all that's holy, Castle, just _open_ the damn thing-

He spreads it smooth with a thumb, the paper held at his waist, his head bowed over it, and she doesn't even know what it says. It could be anything at all. Anything, and she has no idea, she's just standing here waiting on him and-

Castle lifts his head, something completely unknown in his eyes. He works his mouth, looking at her, and shit, it's probably one of the very worst, the worst, it would be her luck-

"You're a coward - when it comes to me?"

She lets out a long breath, a hitch at the deepest part that keeps her from finding her voice for a moment.

"Why, Kate? Why would you be afraid of me?"

"No," she croaks out, shaking her head. This isn't how - it's not supposed to be this hard. She's not supposed to have to explain. "Not of you. When it comes to you. About you."

_Don't ask me for more._

But in a moment, he's grabbing for the box under his arm, fingers already digging in for more, and her whole being flinches, crying out for mercy, but she should have known better.

There was no way on earth, no way in hell, that Richard Castle would leave all her secrets for later.


	2. Chapter 2

**Himitsu-Bako**

* * *

_ I need a hug. From someone who can withstand it all. _

* * *

"What are you doing?" she gasps, reaching for the box, his massive hands already unfolding a loose slip of paper, his eyes racing across the print. "Castle."

But then suddenly, he's got her by the shoulder and jerking her hard into his chest, both arms surrounding her, crushing her. She can't breathe, feels it closing in on her, all those things she wrote in the box now pressed against her left side.

He won't let go. His chin presses into the side of her face, his mouth working at saying something, but all she hears is a rush of noise, her blood pounding too hard in her veins.

"Castle. Let go. Let me go-"

"No," he says fiercely, and she startles at the note of battle-ready in his voice. "I can't believe you were - and not once did you _call_ me."

She sucks in a breath, air barely moving through her swelling trachea, her panic a live and blossoming thing, filling her up.

"I can withstand it, Kate. Anything. Just _ask_ me, just ask, Kate-"

Oh.

She breathes out, presses her forehead to his neck so she can keep her nose and mouth clear of him, so she can keep gulping down air.

A hug. It's just a hug. Not so bad. A little pathetic on her end, but she remembers feeling like that all the time this summer. Needing arms, touch. Comfort.

"I meant-" she starts, takes another deep breath. "Meant it hurt. And Dad was so careful not to - make it hurt more. He'd pat my shoulder. Not really touch me. Kid gloves - and I was tired of it."

"How annoying," he grumbles. "No touching? I can be relied on to break that rule with regularity, Kate."

She laughs, all breathless and thin, but it still helps. Helps keep her heart from launching itself out of her chest.

"You give good hugs, Castle."

"I know. So much practice."

She lifts her head, gives him a look, but he's all innocent smiles and teasing eyes. He knows exactly what that sounded like. He does let her go though, lets her move back, reassemble her self-control, shaky as it is.

He's still got the box; she has a stinging spot in her ribs where it pressed against her while he hugged it out.

"So, you say that, but I know what this means," he says quietly now, waving the thin strip of paper in her direction.

And then her heart is pounding all over the place again, all jackrabbit intensity, fight or flight adrenaline dumping into her blood stream and making her brain buzz loudly.

What it means. More than needing a hug that pushes through despite the hurt - needing someone who can stand at her side.

He knows. Of course he does.

Castle paws through the pile of tightly folded notes, pulls out another one, and all she can do is stand there, resigned to the terror.

* * *

_It might never go away. It might be with me for the rest of my life. It might keep me from going back home. And then what would I do?_

* * *

His chest clenches at the message she wrote sometime this last summer, alone in her father's cabin, un-hugged, hurting, trying to heal. Her dark fears swirling up and drowning her.

He's got too good an imagination for this. He can picture it all, everything. How much she longed to be back at the precinct - home - but how the wound, the surgery, the physical therapy beat her down, made her think it would never get better.

He broke his leg once, remembers how easy it felt to give up on ever being normal again. The way a gunshot wound through the heart would strip everything away, would make the whole world too much to manage, how she would feel exposed and vulnerable like that, how she would need to hide away from everything-

Ah. Well, that does explain a little. Why she never called him. Why she disappeared.

His fingers reach for another, even as he struggles to marshall his defenses against this - against knowing too much and feeling too much.

* * *

_It's all tangled. There's no me apart from this, no part of me that isn't already tainted by it. If I can't find my mom's killer, might as well be shot dead._

* * *

"No," he grits out, lifting his head from the slip.

She's standing before him bewildered, like she's bracing herself for impact. His heart races with a desperation he hasn't felt since she was shot and bleeding hot into his hands, and now it makes his whole body shake, makes his mouth dry and his guts churn like she really is in danger for her life. Right here. Right now.

And this time he's going to damn well save her.

Castle puts the box on the desk behind her and rips the note to shreds, little pieces, tinier and tinier, his anger spiraling out of his control. Can't even look at her as he does, because he'd shake her.

"Castle," she breathes.

"You do not get to do that," he chokes out. "You don't get to tie yourself to death. You are more than this case. You're-"

"I know, I know," she says quickly, grabbing him by the wrists, loosening his fingers from around the tiny shreds of paper. "I know that now, Castle."

He takes an unsteady breath and searches her eyes to be sure. Strong; she's so strong. No doubts. "You do." But it's still a question.

She gives him a short nod, taking the paper, throwing it away in a trash can under the desk. When she turns back to him, he realizes his hands are still hanging in the air, paperless, and he wants to so badly touch her, so he hugs her instead, tightly.

"Breaking the rule again," he mutters against her head.

She laughs, that quick and pained thing he doesn't like. She's still strong though, her body taut with muscle and coiled in grace.

"You promise?" he asks suddenly, needing to be sure.

"I promise. It's what I've worked on all year with the therapist. Figuring out who I am, if I'm more than my mom's murder."

"I could've told you," he says suddenly. And then to cover the creepiness of that statement, he tacks on some humor. "Save you a few thousand dollars in therapy."

She pulls back, gives him a slow tug of her lips, mouth closed, eyes light on his. How can he do anything else but love her? She's amazing. She's everything.

He's just going to have to deal with it. Figure it out. Because avoiding her doesn't work, and damn near got him killed, and it's just so much better with her than without her.

It's better to see her and not have her, to work with her side by side but not work at her with his mouth and hands, better to receive that smile, that warm and friendly look in her eyes than to waste his time with blondes that don't read and police detectives that walk on the edge of the law.

His heart will just have to deal with it.

So he reaches for her box of secrets before she can take them away - he can tell by the look on her face she was going to, _that's enough for now Castle,_ but it's not enough, it's never enough, and he will push this as far as he has to - so he pulls out another one, keeps the box close to his chest.

* * *

_Sometimes I dream about it._

* * *

Castle blinks, unfurls another one because he doesn't know, isn't sure he can ask, doesn't think he really wants to know what she dreams about. (But maybe he does.)

He must have instinctively gone for this next folded confession because it looks like it's written on the same paper, written moments later even, the very next line underneath dreaming about it-

* * *

_Sometimes I wake up calling out his name._

* * *

Everything in him goes still.

* * *

If she could just get a deep breath. It would be better if she could just get some oxygen to her brain, her extremities. Her fingers are tingling and her toes are already numb; every inhalation is a jerky, unrhythmic thing.

Though the two hugs helped.

And then, as she's musing on the way his arms can crush the life out of her just as easily as her panic, she realizes with dawning dread that he's quiet.

He's too quiet.

She turns her eyes away from the window just over his shoulder, the lovely blue, the branches just getting their leaves, and meets his gaze.

Oh.

What is that?

He opens his mouth, closes it, looks down at the oft-folded slip of ragged paper in his hands. She knows which one it is just by the way it looks.

Well, she knows what series of secrets it's from. She used lined notebook paper for those, a recycled grade that has a grey tinge to it, just a spiral bound she scavenged from her father, a mini notepad he keeps for writing down measurements.

It must be karma - she used her father's paper to write such intimate secrets and now these are some of the first things Castle has pulled out of that box of thirty or more.

Once she started writing them, her dark thoughts, the things she never wanted anyone to know, she couldn't stop.

She sighs, reaches out for the slip. "Which one is this?"

He jerks back, presses it close to his chest, defending it from her. But he opens his mouth and scrapes out, "Which _one_ is this?"

She waves him off. "I'm jumping ahead. Sorry. Spoilers."

His face flushes, cheeks and eyes bright. "Spoilers?" And he looks torn now, between asking her about it and going back to the box.

Maybe they should be doing this differently. Some of these obviously require explanation, and she meant for him to open one at a time and give them a chance to-

What exactly? She was going to _talk_ to him? Right. This is infinitely easier, isn't it? Get it over in one fell swoop.

"Kate. What - how - never mind. I'm gonna keep going."

Search for answers in her secrets, he means. That's good. He'll know all of it then, and she won't have to say anything and worry about what to censor.

And to be honest, some of these she's probably forgotten.

He laughs suddenly, freely, his eyes coming up to meet hers with all these little slips of paper laced through his fingers, and one unrolled along his palm.

He reads it out loud, "My Dad is driving me absolutely crazy."

She grins back to him, shrugging her shoulders. "Don't tell him."

"Secret's safe with me," he quips.

"Yeah," she agrees. All of them are.

His smile is that beautiful thing she's missed so badly. The smile he gave her when she came towards him at Ryan's wedding and he was Alexis-less, when he caught sight of her, the two of them single and needing the other.

He forgave her once, he really did. That smile at the wedding proves it. The reappearance of it now makes her wonder if she's been given that gift again.

Even while she's been thinking, he dives back into the box, the papers he's unfurled already waving in his fingers like the little white flags of her surrender.

His jaw drops, reading as he reveals the secret fold by fold.

Uh-oh. Which one is this?

"Kate," he chokes out, lifting his eyes to hers, hot and needy and desperate.

She feels it burn in her, clear down, like a roller coaster's plunge.

"What-" he growls out, stops, staring at her, breath labored, harsh in his lungs.

Oh. _Oh no_, she forgot. She might have - there might have been some X-rated elements to some of those - the ones she wrote right after waking when she was still so tired, and strung out, and on edge with need despite how every movement of her body was pain.

The ones she wrote after she dreamed of him.

But it's not like it isn't still true.

Kate reaches out and takes the box from the cradle of his arm, lets him keep the ones he's already pulled, slowly closes the puzzle box, one piece sliding into place at a time. He's watching her hands, closely, so it must have been the one about how she'd-

Um. Yeah.

At least he's not staring at her mouth. She might need to - that might - yeah. Whew, okay.

She needs to calm down. It's no good going from shaking with terror to shaking with arousal. Can't be good for _them_ either. (If there's still a chance for them, if them is what he even - and if she can even do it.)

"Wait," he gets out, reaching for the box, grabbing it back. She lets it go, and even though he was watching her both times - opening and closing - he can't get the pieces in the right order to get it apart again. "No. Kate. I can't get it open - you can't stop me now."

There's a growling pout to his voice, but also a need that has nothing to do with how pornographic her secrets might have gotten. A need that arises from sensing the answer waits on the tantalizing edge of his reach but unable to get at it.

"Not stopping now," she says, deciding he's right. It's time for answers. "I just - I can't stand here all afternoon. Let's at least sit down."

"On the bed?" he says, and the shock in his voice is enough to mitigate the insinuation in the words.

It's enough to set a smirk to her mouth. A relief to hear him a little disconcerted while she's got herself under control again.

She shakes her head. "Couch. Living room. And then I'll teach you how to open my box."

Oh, oops.

"You're gonna kill me," he mutters.


	3. Chapter 3

**Himitsu-Bako**

* * *

_I'm looking for space, and to find out who I am, and I'm looking to know and understand. It's a sweet, sweet dream. Sometimes I'm almost there. _

* * *

They stand awkwardly in the living room, not looking at each other, and she wishes - only for a moment - she hadn't been quite so honest with her confessions.

He fiddles with the strips of paper still in his hands, all the little creased notes, and gives her a sheepish look.

"I had one in my hand still to go," he admits, and she sees he's already untangled it.

Kate swallows and raises an eyebrow.

"Is this? - this is a John Denver song," he gets out, and his face breaks into that hesitant half-smile, the one he's not sure he's allowed. But he is. He's allowed.

She's just not sure she can smile back. "Yeah."

"It's a - it's a sweet song."

She shrugs and feels her fingers tightening on the box. "It's a sad song."

"I think it's hopeful. Not sad."

Oh that's better. Yeah. It is, isn't it?_ Sometimes I'm almost there._

So close.

"Can I have it back now?" he says, holding his hand out. The other he's kept against his chest, cradling all those wisps of paper like the stuffing has come out of her straw man.

"Sit down first," she says, nodding towards the couch. Brown leather, it's strangely warm under her thighs as she lowers herself down.

"You winced," he says.

She startles, looks up at him as he comes to sit beside her. "I did?"

"Habit then? Conditioned response to the place? I noticed you wincing in your room too."

Her jaw drops; she shuts it, looks down at the box. "I guess so. It doesn't hurt. There's no reason I should be wincing."

He nods slowly, studying her, and she realizes her words have meaning beyond today.

"Can I keep these?" he says suddenly.

"No!" She blinks at the forcefulness of her own answer, her chest cracking open at the look on his face. "I mean. Not out here. In the box. We'll put them back when it's - all over with. And you keep that."

"You . . .I get the box? All of it?"

She nods. "I don't want them."

A dart of a smile makes its way across his face, quick, as if he thinks it's amusing, she's amusing. And she probably is. Actually, this whole thing is so layered with subtext that she can't even keep track of what she might accidentally be telling him. Probably more than she would normally, but hopefully it's enough to put things right.

"Show me how to . . .how did you put it? Open your box."

She narrows her eyes at him, for that smile, that delicious and smirky smile, but she places the box between them and silently uses a combination of moves to slide back the lid. Then she closes it again, reassembling the puzzle, and hands it over with a lift of her eyebrow.

"Think you got what it takes?"

He huffs, tamping down on his smirk as he takes it from her. "I can try. I'm pretty good with my hands."

She chokes a startled laugh, lifts her eyes to him; his are wide and his mouth is hanging open.

"I was - I mean. The writing. Typing. Keyboard. Not - not that."

"Not that?" she says, then gives an exaggerated sigh. "Too bad."

He growls at her, his eyes narrowing now.

She gives a half-shrug, as if to say it's nothing to her whether or not he's - dexterous.

"If you can't handle it, Castle, then-"

"I can handle it. I got this. Let me concentrate on the box."

"Uh-huh," she murmurs, finds herself studying those hands.

This feels good, right. To have this easy and playful thing between them again. It's been too long. They had a few stolen moments in the break room when they were still good, but this year has been too careful. She didn't want to - tease. It felt cruel after she'd asked him to wait for her, asked him to rein it in. But maybe he took that wrong, all this time; maybe he saw it as stepping back.

She sighs. All kinds of miscommunication going on.

"Ha!"

The box is open. It makes her stomach churn. "You got it."

He laughs, another good smile on his face - so many of those now, like she's being showered with them - and then he reaches in.

And suddenly it's not funny any more.

* * *

_I can't imagine sitting at my desk and looking over and him not being there._

* * *

He sucks in a breath, blinking at her, his fist easing from around all the other notes. She wrinkles her forehead as she reads what he just unfolded, then a blush suffuses her face, her eyes avoiding his.

"Ah. That was - I was thinking about Montgomery," she says quietly. "I never thought - it never occurred to me that you might not be there when I got back."

His heart sinks at the desolation in her voice; he doesn't know if it's for the fallen and flawed man who mentored her, or if it's his own absence when she finally showed up again.

"I wish I had been there," he says. "To make it less - I don't know. To just make it less. Easier on you."

She nods at that, takes the slip of paper from him, starts folding it again. Is she nervous? She is. She's nervous.

Castle only has ten or so, but he lays the notes out on the couch between them, handing them back over to fold. She shoots him a grateful but questioning look, reaches out for another one, starts folding it as well.

He goes back for a new secret.

* * *

_I don't know how to be an invalid with grace. I'm driving Dad crazy. I don't want to do this any more. I wish it was one of Castle's stories and he'd write the ending and I could skip ahead._

* * *

"Not much skipping," he says. "Too bad real life works out like this."

He's gesturing between them and she is completely clueless. "Skipping?"

He hands her the note and she reads it, her mouth dry.

"Want the silver lining?" he offers, his voice rich in the warm air.

She lifts her eyes. "You got one?"

"We're here now."

She lets a smile grow on her face because - because he sounds more than desperately hopeful now, sounds more certain. He sounds like he already knows how this one ends.

"Is 'here' the end of this story?" she says.

He shakes his head. She would like to hear more, would like him to say this is just the beginning, or a new chapter, something, but he doesn't. He won't, will he? She's backed him into a corner on this one, and she's the one who has to do the risking.

And she's so very bad at it.

It's possibles she _doesn't_ know how this one ends.

* * *

_The 'why'__ eats me alive. I can't see past the mirage of 'maybe this time' - maybe this time I'll get him, this time I'll know, this time I can put it to rest. Even lying on the floor unable to get up, I want to chase after this. Until it kills me._

* * *

Castle crunches his hand around it, breathes heavily through the swamp of grief that closes over his head.

He says nothing. He goes back for another.

* * *

_It hurts to go to the bathroom. It hurts to laugh. I roll over in my sleep and the pain wakes me up. I'm a mess, and selfish, and everything in my body is a snarled knot that won't unravel. I can't breathe past it. I'm so glad Castle isn't here._

* * *

"It's not fair of you to make that decision for me," he suddenly says, his face calm. Stating a long held belief, a conclusion he must have made some time ago but only now feels safe to utter.

She knew it wouldn't be pretty, this whole secrets thing, but she wasn't counting on the way his reactions would twist her heart.

"What decision?"

"Keeping me away."

She studies him, knows this is all water under the bridge to them both, but it's good to get things straight. "I won't do that next time."

He lifts his head and his eyes are dark sparks. Angry. "Better not _ever_ be a next time."

And he's already pulling out another one.

* * *

_After another spectacularly dismal attempt to get out of bed on my own, after Dad came in and practically scraped me up off the floor (how many times is this now? seven, nine?), I tried to give my father back his watch. 'We're even,' I told him. Life for life, right? He looked at it and shook his head, gave it back. 'If anyone deserves a watch, it's Rick.' _

_It should have made me call him - but it didn't. Instead, I had a panic attack and stayed in bed all day. Again._

* * *

He might not be able to take this.

When he started eagerly reading her secrets, knowing that he was just waiting for that one, he didn't expect it to be like this. Agonizing. Intimate.

Stunning.

Good and bad - the beauty of her inner self balanced against the dark.

When he read that she wanted to _touch him _- well, when he read that, and he read that she called out his name, then he realized what she's doing with this. How she's gearing herself up to explain and set the record straight and so he figures she knows. She knows that he knows that she remembers everything.

But this. These glimpses of those bleak months. It's almost too much. It hurts, and he thought he was over that hurt.

She's watching him through her lashes, as if she can't bear not to know what he's thinking but can't ask him directly, just in case.

"When you were - when I got kicked out of the 12th by Gates and I pretty much figured you were never going to call me-"

He hears her sucking in a breath. Prelude to a panic attack. He knows the signs - not because she's shared that information with him, but because he looked it up and then studied her intently. She sucks in a breath and her eyes squeeze shut once and sometimes she presses her hand against her-

Yeah, there it goes.

"Kate. I don't have to-"

"I want to know. I'm unloading on you; it should go both ways."

He stares down at the secrets, the puzzle box he knows how to open, realizes that he does know her just as well. He knows how to get to her, how to open her up, how to make it easier.

So he sets everything on the coffee table and grabs her before she can figure out what he's doing, wraps an arm at her shoulders, the other at her lower back, dragging her to meet him in the middle of the couch.

She shudders on her breath, and he feels her fist in his shirt before she lifts her head, watching him with dark eyes.

"Breaking the rules again?" she says, a hitch to her voice but better than she was.

"Always," he murmurs, realizes what he's said only by the stiff set to her shoulders, the wild flare of hope that springs in her eyes.

Did he - was this what he did to her these past few weeks? She hoped for things from him? He did too, he hoped things. He's starting to think they were the same things, and he's not sure that's a good idea, hoping in things.

She's dropped her chin back to his shoulder, but her breathing is normal again. She still feels hot, her heart is fast where her pulse throbs. Neck to neck. Strange how it reminds him of the cemetery, his fingers at her neck, cradling her head, his other at the gunshot wound, ineffective and vain, feeling the blood well up through his frantic fingers.

Her hand suddenly skates up his back, cups his neck, thumb smoothing the short hair there. He closes his eyes, feels himself ease; he didn't realize he'd been tensing up.

"Kate. Does - do I still give you panic attacks?"

She grunts, shaking her head against him. "No."

"Do you still get them?"

"Yes."

"A lot?"

She hums something dissatisfied in answer. More than she likes, then.

"But the therapist helps?" he whispers, realizes his lips are nearly at her ear, wants so badly to turn his head and caress that pink shell with his breath, chase it with his mouth, a kiss.

He wants to kiss her. He wants, oh he wants her, and this is never going to be enough.

"He does," she says quietly, her body so still against his. "You help too."

He has to clear his throat to speak. "I do?"

"You know you do," she says clearly, a sigh in her voice. "Was that one about me having a panic attack?"

"Yes." He risks changing his grip, loosening his arms so that his palm can skim up her back and curl at her neck, mirroring her gesture. "It says, instead of calling me, you had a panic attack."

She laughs, and it sounds wrong, it sounds fragile and scared. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

"I wanted to - I didn't want to. I didn't want to have to deal with anything, nothing about real life. It was like being hunted down."

"What?" He clutches her again, a frisson of leftover panic skittering in his guts.

"You or him. One of the two was going to come after me. It got mixed up in my head."

"Great, Beckett," he says wryly, needing it to help calm him down again. "You mixed me up with a hired sniper. So flattering."

She puffs out a breath that might be a laugh. "Yeah. You see now why I couldn't call you?"

"Yeah. I'm not going to say thank you for that, but I'm starting to get the not-so-pretty picture."

"Definitely not pretty. And not flattering to either of us, Castle," she says fiercely. "And I'm sorry for that. But I couldn't turn it off. It wasn't a switch-"

"No, it's not," he cuts in, lets himself rub the back of her neck with his fingertips because he can, because she's here and it's not a switch he can flip. He tried. He failed. He's in love with her.

And God, it hurts.

* * *

She's not sure how it happened like this, but she's been maneuvered into a long-lasting hug (seriously, this isn't a hug anymore, and she knows it) while he reads her ugly truth over her shoulder, a large, hot palm at her neck and his other hand resting against her spine, holding another slip of ragged notebook paper.

He chuckles into her ear and her body responds helplessly to the sound of his voice as he reads to her.

"I need my gun. Dad got my registered piece from the apartment and brought it out here but he won't let me have it. I need my gun. I need to shoot. Maybe he knows I'd be aiming for that damn bird that wakes me at four every morning."

She laughs back, an explosive thing that's half pent-up tension and half relief. "Yeah, sounds funny now, but you don't hear that damn bird."

"A bird, Beckett. Shooting at a bird with your weapon?"

"It was a mockingbird," she says gruffly.

"Ah, to kill a mockingbird."

She groans, laughs again, all of it sliding right out of her at the warmth in him - everything about him is warm and she's missed it so badly. "Right before it started singing, it sounded like the click of a safety going off. The bird I mean. Must have picked it up from hunters in the area. Every morning, at four, right when I'd just given in and taken a pain pill and had maybe thirty minutes of sleep. Click. Everything rushing back on me."

"I wish I'd known; I'd have strangled the thing."

She groans softly. "Couldn't even get my shit together long enough to call you, Castle. Let alone complain about a bird."

"So your dad didn't let you have your gun?"

"I'd have shot him by accident. It was a smart move. PTSD is brutal and entirely without logic."

She feels him go very still, even holding his breath, and she can't figure out what she's said now-

"PTSD?"

Oh. "Yes," she says, owning it. "Yes, the panic attacks. Falling on my ass during the sniper case. Disappearing on you."

"Oh." His voice is quiet.

"I'm okay, Castle."

"I know you are," he says without hesitation. "I know."

She should stop hugging him. Embracing him. She should sit up and let him read the rest of those and have the guts the face him as he does.

When Kate moves to push off against his chest, he tightens his arm and grunts at her, an almost whine in his voice.

"No. I'm not giving up ground. You stay here."

"But I can't see you," she mutters, an embarrassment and need creeping into her voice that she can't stop.

"Don't need to see me. You can feel me-"

She laughs, sucking down air, cheeks flaming, suddenly glad she's not looking him in the eye for that one.

"Oh, I certainly can," she murmurs, hears him laughing, his breath across her hair. "But I want to see you."

She pulls back, her hand trailing from his shoulder down his arm to his wrist, almost with a mind of its own, until she can circle her fingers around his, smooth her thumb over the back of his hand.

"I think we both know where we're going with this," she says finally, knowing it needs to be said. Not for herself, but for him, to prove it to him. "We both know. So let it play out, Castle."

His eyes are so intent on her face that she can only stare back, wait for him to break the spell.

Castle nods, twists his hand under hers until he can lace their fingers together. The intimacy and shock of his skin sliding between hers, through the V of her fingers, snug and hot and thick, makes her heart pound.

"Hurry up and read the rest," she says, her throat dry.

"Let it play out or hurry up?" he asks, his eyes glittering, voice rough.

"Yes," she answers, realizes that she'll probably be saying yes to this man for a good long time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Himitsu-Bako**

* * *

_Good day: Out of bed on my own - no panic attack; Shower - no panic attack; Breakfast on the back porch - no panic attack; Read an old one of his - no panic attack. read until nightfall. now it is dark. I can't see out. my heart is pounding. but it was a good day, a good day, a good day - gotta hold on to that._

* * *

Castle grips the edges of the meticulously written note, every stroke precise, as if she used the formation of each letter to stave off the darkness.

It would be totally unmanly to cry. Right? Yes. No crying, Richard.

He lifts his eyes to hers. Now he's the one who needs a hug. Can he say that?

Maybe not. Not yet.

Give it time. What did she say? Let it play out.

* * *

_figured it out - the sunlight on my skin somehow infuses me with strength. I stay outside all day, (sweat profusely), and rebuild, restore. funny though - I hear Castle in my head: You're not Superman, Beckett. Don't forget - you are not faster than a speeding bullet._

* * *

"Superman?" he says, smiling at her with a sheen of sadness in his eyes.

She tilts her head at him in affirmation, waits for whatever it is he needs to say. He can't let any of them go; he comments on everything. He always has.

He's rubbing two fingers over his knee, his body slanted towards hers. She's got a leg pulled up and resting against the back of the couch, watching him or not watching him as her cowardly heart allows. He's staring at the words on the page as if he could absorb them.

Suddenly he glances up again. "Kate. I - I need to - can we pause?"

A rush of air fills her chest, the first full breath she's gotten in an hour. "Pause?"

"I'm sorry. It's totally not an opportune moment, I know that, but I have - I need to write something down before I forget, make a few notes for the book-"

She must look stricken because his hand leaves his knee and grips hers, eyes intense and beseeching on hers.

"No, no. I'm not - none of this will go in Nikki Heat. I promise. Secrets safe with me, remember?"

She nods, something weak fluttering in her chest. Oh, that might be - yes it is. It's her relieved little heart.

"It just gave me an idea. I need to - can I pause this and make a note in my phone? I just need to - I have to write a couple lines."

"For Nikki?" she repeats, not really asking. "I don't mind. I - yeah."

"It's just - I haven't had a good idea in ages, I just sit there, no inspiration, but now. Now."

Now is different. Now hasn't been the last few weeks. Now - now he must understand, he must realize what she's trying to say.

"Write, Castle," she nudges, pushing her fingers into his knee.

"But don't close it up," he says, eyebrows knitting, concern spilling out of his eyes.

"I won't."

"Just a pause. That's all. We'll return after these messages."

She presses her lips together, suppressing a smile, hopes the adoration doesn't just leak out of her. That would be so embarrassing. "Stop explaining. Write."

He gives her a grateful, relieved look and pulls his phone out. "Can I take a picture of this? Not faster than a speeding bullet? It's okay, right, because it's not anything - it's funny, and I want to use this line. I'll split the royalties with ya."

That blue-adorable smile is aimed directly at her. Struck by it. "No royalties needed. Your words anyway. Isn't that what I said? I got you talking in my head now."

"I hear they have medication for that."

She laughs, bites her bottom lip as she shakes her head at him. "No meds. I kinda like it."

"Yeah?" Happy eyes. She forgot what those looked like until now. How could she forget?

"Don't get all cocky," she smirks, lifting her foot to push on his knee, narrowing her eyes.

He grins even as he frames his shot, takes the photo. Looks like he's sending it to himself in an email - he rotates his phone and types quickly with his thumbs. Ideas. Lines.

She's his muse. He's writing it right in front of her, looking half-ashamed as he does, like she might be unhappy with it. Yeah, _right._

He's writing because of her. (Not Slaughter, not Sophia Turner, not - Oh God, Kate Beckett is Richard Castle's muse.)

How could she have ever forgotten that?

* * *

_top ten reasons to get out of the cabin: call him, see him, apologize to him, stare creepily at him, sit in the 12th with him, show up at his door, beg coffee from him, explain to him, be able to stop thinking about him, just - him - castle._

* * *

He hums to himself and tries to keep the ridiculous smile off his face. Ain't happening. "There's a lot of me in this one."

She huffs and leans forward a little on her knees, one of her hands on his shoulder for balance as she reads it. He glances up, her mouth so close, sees the flush creep up her neck. It goes no farther though, just pinks her collarbone.

"I forgot that was in there."

"I'm taking this one home with me," he says with relish, and shoves it into the back pocket of his jeans before she can grab for it.

"Castle," she groans.

"Yeah, that's why I'm keeping it."

She squeezes his shoulder but settles back down. This time, he's pretty sure she's closer than she was before. He's thought for a while now that she's been creeping closer, but now he's certain. She's got her knee against his shin where he's pulled his leg up on the couch, her hand on his jean-clad calf.

"But I didn't even - I didn't do any of those things that I wanted to do."

"Do - me?" he says, totally can't help it, and her face actually flames up. Not embarrassment, oh no. All heat. Directed at him.

"The talking," she says, her words clipped like she's have to get past it.

"Thus the post-it note," he supplies, remembering her reminder to herself. Coward.

She deflates, her shoulders slumping. "Yeah."

"Hey." He reaches out, rubs his thumb over the round line of her thigh, lets his fingers burrow in the crease behind her knee as she sits on her feet. He can feel the thick ridge of her muscle, tendons, the flex of her leg as she shifts slightly.

She looks at him and he's forgotten what he was going to say.

Ohhh, that's a good line too.

"Can I - one more time? Kate. Just a second to get it down-"

She lets out a breathy little laugh and nods. "Write. Write, write. I'm glad my cowardice can inspire you."

He gives a weak shrug, but he's already pulling his phone back out. He wishes he'd brought his laptop. Not that he knew, or had any idea, not that he's been able to write and so should have known. But now he's got all this stuff in his head, ideas keep coming, and he's got to write.

Bare bones for now. The keyboard is awkward with his wide thumbs when he starts going fast, the auto-correct is from the devil, the words trip over themselves to get out.

He's so far into it that he doesn't notice; he's writing full-fledged lines now and not just the skeleton when he feels her body shift closer. He cuts his eyes to her, sees her biting her lip and leaning in, looking at his phone.

He lifts his head, watches her until she realizes and sits back, not quite blushing, but the soft and radiant glow on her face as she regards him.

"You okay?" he says, amused by the intimacy of her, amused and completely aroused.

She nods. "Just - watching."

"You like to watch?"

She arches an eyebrow, not even thrown by that comment, even while he's stunned that it came out of his own mouth.

He just _said_ that?

"Could be," she murmurs. "You'll just have to wait and see."

Did this just-? - this just got hot. She got sexy in two seconds flat. Holy crap, Kate Beckett just got_ so very_ sexy.

"You gonna write, Castle, or what?"

"Or what," he croaks out.

A smile blooms across her face, slow and beautiful, and all the hot disappears, melts into some combination of pathetic and hopeless love that fills him up so full he can barely breathe.

"Come on, let's get through this," she says softly.

"Get through it?" He wants to take it slow, make her crazy with it, make her-

Oh.

Right. The rest of those confessions in her puzzle box. Yeah, he can do that too.

One leads to the other.

He hopes.

* * *

_This isn't okay anymore. But I don't know what to do about it. So I'll get up, go to work, see if I can survive._

* * *

She's entirely too distracted by the way his fingers have wrapped around her thigh, tucked up under her knee, snug. It makes her throat dry with wanting.

"This written on your last day here?" he asks into the quiet, his fingers flexing.

She glances at the paper, knows it just from the color, the dark stain of ink at the back. She broke the pen she'd been using all summer, cried as the life of it leaked out onto the page. Hated herself for crying.

"Yeah."

He flips the scrap of paper over, rubs his thumb along it as if he can tell exactly what happened that morning she left - the busted pen, the crying, all of it.

"What's not okay anymore?" he asks.

She swallows. "Putting my life on hold because I don't have answers. So much of me getting sucked down into it."

He spreads out the torn slip across the couch cushion, studying it. "We'll find your answers, Kate-"

"No," she says, strength again in her voice. At least she has that. "I don't need that to be - I don't want it to be the thing between us. The wall."

"The wall," he repeats, and she knows this is the time. She has to get it out of her.

"I'm not putting it on hold anymore."

"Your life."

"That too."

He glances up at her, a wave of surprise crashing in his eyes. "Too?"

"As in, also?" she teases, finds her strength in the way he looks at her. "Keep going, Castle. Don't stop now."

* * *

_I had a dream that you came. I had a dream that you wouldn't give me space. I had a dream that you chased after me. I woke up alone and it was dark._

* * *

"Kate," he groans, bowed over the damning page. "Oh God, I wish I had. I wish I had-"

Her fingers at his neck, against his cheek, her mouth whispering at his ear. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to hurt you."

He drops the confession and wraps his arms around her, pulls her up against him as tight as he can, trying to make up the distance.

"I should've come. I should've stopped sulking and just forced my way in-"

"You didn't know where I was. You know I wouldn't have liked it anyway. It would've been a disaster. We would've been a disaster."

"I thought I learned this lesson already." Kyra had said she thought he'd come, and now Kate. Now Kate. When would he figure it out? He's always been the guy pushing his way inside, especially with Kate, so he chose this one time to respect her silence? He's an idiot. A colossal-

"Don't," she says and then the lightest brush of her lips is skimming his cheek towards his ear. "Pause here?"

_No, don't stop, Kate. _

But he nods against her, struggles against the aching need to press so deeply into her she can never be alone again. Not because he wants her (though there is that), but because she deserves so much, because she should have everything, because she hurts.

And he hurt her. Then and now. He's going to make it up to her. Right now.

"Kate. I wanted to come." His chest constricts with memory. "I wanted to see you. I wanted to pick you up off the floor and make you breakfast and write you stories and sit by your bed and try not to make you laugh because it hurt too much."

Her arms at his neck tighten. She must understand that he fantasized about it, that his best dreams at night involved watching her heal.

"I know you couldn't," he murmurs, letting his lips find her ear, the strands of her hair tickling across his face. "I get it now; I'm reading what it was like. I know it wouldn't have been okay. Not then. Not the way it was."

She lets out a ragged sigh, like she might be trying not to cry. He doesn't want to hurt her either, but maybe the truth will require some pain at first.

"But now," he breathes. "The way it is now. We've been working at it all year. When you came to find me at the bookstore, you made a promise, and I've been keeping it."

"Not alone," she gets out, her fingers squeezing his neck. "I've been keeping it too."

She has. The therapy, the smiles, the dinners out. And now these secrets pulled out of their complicated box. Everything made clean.

He cups his hand at the back of her head, holds her against him. "We've been good, not being together; we've been figuring it out. Like a dry run, Kate."

She's nodding against him, her breath faster now, her body lifted up against his.

"We're getting it all out of the way. All the stupid things. Right? So once the air is clear. . ."

"Yeah?" she prompts, her voice a delicate whisper, hopeful again.

"One and done, Kate. It's one and done."


	5. Chapter 5

**Himitsu-Bako**

* * *

_I know what I want, but I don't know how to get there. I need help, but I don't think he knows how to get there either._

* * *

She reads over his shoulder, her knees up against his spine, her chin pressed at his scapula, her arms drawn in, fingers touching his ribs. He's turned on the couch so that he's half crushing her back into it, but she needs it like this. He keeps trying to shift away, but she pulls him in.

The scrap of paper trembles; she sighs and waits for it. He'll have something to say. Surely. After that.

But he doesn't. He hands it back to her, reaches for a new one. She takes it, looks at the offending words, wonders if she should say something instead.

"Castle?"

"Yeah?" he says, sounding distracted. He's already unrolling the next one. She knows what that one is - the only one she rolled up instead of folded, because it's different, it's everything - and she has to stop it before - well, she needs to make things a little more clear before he sees that one.

"Castle, wait."

He stops, his body hard and still against her.

"It doesn't matter, you know."

"What?" he gets out, his voice sounding like gravel. So her secret hurt him, like she was afraid all these secrets would.

"It doesn't matter if you know how to get there or not. We'll figure it out?"

He turns his head and something heavy lifts from his gaze like a veil. "Kate?"

Is that a question or is he just surprised? She lifts from his shoulder and sits back in the couch, watching him for a moment. She doesn't have words - that's why the box - and what could he possibly need her to say that she hasn't-

Oh.

"Now open that one, Castle."

He gives the rolled up paper in his hand a confused glance, then he looks up at her again. "I don't-"

"Just look at it."

He slides it open, thumb across the words as it unrolls.

She waits. She can barely breathe.

* * *

_I love you too._

* * *

Castle stares at it.

Four words.

He was looking for - this wasn't the secret he expected - he thought she didn't really and - and this doesn't-

She's at his back, her fists in his shirt, and he jerks around, staring at her now, holding the slip of paper with a finger and thumb and his heart pounding.

She stares back at him and her whole face - the anxiety trembling in her body - everything is on the brink of something.

_They_ are on the brink of something.

But he doesn't know what. It could break him. Or make him.

The shell he's hardened over himself is cracking open. "I thought you - didn't. But you did?"

Her eyebrows knit. "Did?"

"Did you?"

She gives him a confused look, her teeth at her lower lip like she doesn't understand him, but he doesn't understand _her_ and can't she just say what she means for once?

"Kate. Just - I just need to know. I just want to know. Straight. No more messing around, or talking in code, or - I can't take bouncing back and forth."

"But I am telling you. Right now. How is this confusing?" she says heatedly, pink racing up her neck.

"Because it doesn't make any sense. You disappeared all summer and ignored me - which is a pretty clear sign - and then you spent all year looking at me all soft and tender like you were trying to let me down easy, and then you just - you tell some suspect in the box that you remember everything - you don't even tell me to my face-" He groans and rakes his fingers through his hair, looks over at her.

Shit, she's crying. What did he do? How is this - it's just not fair. For her to slap him around with the idea that they've missed their moment, that it's too late, she might have once but-

She shoves on him, struggling away like he's_ hurt_ her. He just doesn't get it. She hurt _him. _He doesn't understand her; it doesn't make sense, and he wants to know why she thought this was ever a good idea in the first place - she just wants to crush him with all her secrets? She wants to make sure he knows, once and for all, how awful it was for her and how he can't do a thing to make it any better, any less a tragedy-

He watches her stalk off and drops his eyes to the slip of paper and-

_I love you too_.

It slices right through him. She told him to open it. She told him - what did she say? She said it didn't matter if they knew how to get where they wanted. They'd get there.

Well, that's a totally different - that's not-

"Kate?"

Where did she go?

Castle gets to his feet, sweeps his eyes across the space as he navigates the couch, moves down the hallway. He finds her in her bedroom, her back to him, hands gripping the windowsill.

"Kate."

She doesn't turn around. He heads for her, grips her by the arm and she sucks in a breath as her eyes meet his.

Tears stream down her face, tears that she's already trying to swipe away, anger shining out at him.

And hurt.

"Okay, I'm - dense. I don't get it. I don't understand," he starts, trying to gentle his voice as he keeps her close to him, hand around her bicep. "You have to make me understand, Kate, please."

She's still swiping at her face with one hand, turning her head away from him.

"Kate, I don't know anymore. I thought, this whole year, I thought you were trying to tell me something. But then - then I hear that you - hear what you're not saying, how you're hiding yourself from me, and I thought we were past that - thought it was different with us, and I don't know what to think anymore. I sometimes - I only see what I want to see, hear what I want to hear, and I wanted this, so badly, and I can't trust myself when it comes to you-"

Kate crashes into him, knocking him backwards a little with the force of her body meeting his; he hears her gulping back her tears and can't help but need to comfort, need to draw his arms around her.

He's never seen her like this before, at least, not about him. Them. Whatever this is. She sobbed over Coonan, she sobbed over Montgomery-

Oh. It's dead? She thinks this is dead, over, and-

"Castle," she moans, her hands gripping his shirt so tightly.

God, he loves her. Help him, he does, he can't - he can't stand this. He'll do anything if only she would - if he could just make her happy. If it meant standing here and taking it, silent as she - standing by - he could - he'd figure out how to do that, he would. He would.

Castle lifts his hand to her head, sifts his fingers through her hair until he can cradle her skull. Something eases in him as she breathes out against his cheek, her body loosening, melting against him. She takes another shaky breath and he can feel her wet lashes at his skin.

"I've messed it up," she says, her voice raw.

"No," he says inanely, even though it's entirely not true. She's messed it up but so has he. "It doesn't have to be."

"I thought I was fixing it," she says, and this time he can tell that she's close to crying again and yet struggling to keep it back.

"It was going good," he says, trying for a laugh. But it's not funny.

"I thought that would explain. Why is it still all messed up? Why doesn't it work? Being silent doesn't work but saying it doesn't work either."

The plaintive tone in her voice makes him draw his arm tighter around her; he turns and presses his lips to her cheek, feels her shiver. Oh. Oh, they don't do that, do they? He probably shouldn't have kissed her. It's not-

"I love you, Castle, and I'm afraid it's not enough."

He jerks his head back to look at her.

"What?"

* * *

When she looks at him, he looks surprised. "This isn't new information," she huffs at him, drawing her arms back.

He clutches her tighter, his fingers still in her hair at her neck. "Yes it is."

She stares at him. "What - what are you - what the hell, Castle?" Shit, she's going to cry again and that's so not fair. Frustration makes her eyes water, that's all.

His grip gets tighter. "What do you mean it's not enough?"

She shakes her head. "What exactly is going on here? Because I don't get it. I thought - I had this misconception that we were-" Kate breaks off, waves her hand between them as she presses her lips together to keep back the traitorous sob.

She is not going to cry over him. She's done enough of that.

"No, no. Wait. Hold on. I'm - I think you're not understanding me. And I don't think I'm understanding you. You just said you love me? You love me."

She clenches her fist and grits her teeth to keep from using that fist on him. He drives her nuts. "Yes. Is this not - has none of this gotten through to you?"

"Yeah, but I thought I was - making it up in my head." He winces and bends his knees just slightly so he can catch her eyes. "Okay, that sounds stupid out loud. I'm sorry. Um. Can we start over?"

"No!" She jerks back. "I am _not _doing this over again. Bad enough once."

His face falls. "Oh. I thought - okay. Yeah, no - I - I get that."

Kate catches on, her heart squeezed tight at the rough edge to his voice. "No, Castle. Not that. I'll do that over again. I love you."

A shimmer passes through his eyes and his smile lifts. "Oh."

She presses her palm against his chest, shifts on her feet. She's appalled to find that she's shaking, her thighs twitching with a sudden rush of anxiety. Fight or flight. "Do you still - have you stopped - do you maybe want to do it over again?"

Say it. Please say it.

"Of course I still love you. I haven't been able to stop."

"Oh, good." Oh God, oh. She can breathe again.

He's laughing at her, bringing her against him. "Oh good?"

She growls, closing her eyes. "Shut up."

"Uh-huh. You want me pretty bad, don't you?"

"Yes," she says, exasperated. "And yet you have to make it so hard for me."

He laughs harder, suddenly clinging to her. "I - I think you'd like it better har-"

She claps her hand over his mouth, eyes flaring wide, laughter bubbling up from her chest. "Castle."

He grins around her hand, all dazzling blue eyes and happy. He wraps his fingers around her wrist, thumb smoothing across the heel of her palm. "So yeah. You're right. I don't exactly know how we get to where we want to go - what happens next, Kate?"

"No more secrets," she says with a grin, lifting her eyebrow at him.

He suddenly stills, his fingers tightening around her wrist.

She tilts her head, tries to make sure he understands her this time. "There's no need to read the rest of them, Castle. But if you want to - they're yours to read. I'm not taking it away from you. I promise. Take the box home with you."

His eyes clear. "I'd rather take you home with me."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"People gonna be there?"

"Most likely. At some point."

"Darn."

He laughs, sounding surprised, and she can't help it. Suddenly she's kissing him, his lips soft and cautious under hers, his fingers releasing her wrist to cup the side of her face. She breathes through the pause of his mouth, warmth suffusing her at the touch.

Hs index finger strokes her cheekbone, thumb at her chin. "Mmm. Would people being there keep you away?"

"From you? No," she says, feels her bottom lip brush his thumb as she speaks, her smile creeping up. "Never."

"So I'll take both home with me. The box. And you."

She's not saying no. She'll never say no.


	6. Chapter 6

**Himitsu-Bako**

* * *

She's got to drive and concentrate on it too, but she feels him along her right side like a space heater, a radiator, all nervous and barely contained energy emanating out. When she gets back on the interstate, she offers her hand across the center console, and he takes it before she can even blink.

Warm. A anchor. It feels right.

They spend an hour in silence, not talking (finally not talking after saying so very much), until they get back into the city.

"You need to go back to the 12th?" he asks, his voice sounding unused after their quiet.

She shakes her head. "Court day. Means the rest is a free day."

"Good," he says, with a little too much relish, and she has to smile, pressing her lips together.

She drives him to his building, taking her hand back to maneuver into a parallel parking space, and then she realizes they're both sitting there. Like she's going to let him get out of the car without her, like she's dropping him off.

She's not. "You got stuff for dinner?" she asks, feeling the need to bridge the silence.

"Yeah. You gonna eat family dinner with us?"

She lifts her eyes to his, sees both the tease and the hope, the way he can barely keep it back.

"Yeah," she says, smiling a little.

He lets out a long breath. "Then get out of the car, Beckett."

* * *

Castle watches her as they enter the loft; she's not holding his hand but her body flirts with his, sides brushing, fingers at his back, heat shared between them.

He puts the box down on the entry table, positions it so it's right in the center. He feels reverent about it, can't help himself.

Kate looks more at ease than he expected, and of course, it's his mother with a glass of wine in front of the couch running lines, script in her other hand, who notices them first.

"Oh, lovely, Kate." Or was that Lovely Kate? Hard to tell. His daughter turns and pops up from the couch, smiling as well, but it's not as wide as it could be.

"Hi," Kate says, and he sees her step inside and walk right out to the living room, embrace his mother by the elbows to keep from jostling her glass.

"Kate had court so she gets to come home early with me."

"Cool. Staying for dinner?" Alexis asks her, receiving a hug as well, but this one a little tighter. "Gram and I already started it - lasagna. But it'll be another hour or so."

"Sounds really good," Kate says, and her head turns back to him, just a quick reference, before she sits down next to his daughter.

He would much rather he and Kate were on their own, but he also loves the way she handles herself in front of his family. She always has. Even with this - the change between them that really isn't a change, just a clearing of the air - even now, she's at ease. She knows who she is and has confidence.

He loves that.

He's getting sappy. Already. Still.

"So, what else needs to be done on the lasagna?" he says.

Alexis jumps back up, glancing over towards the kitchen to check. "Well, we were trying for homemade sauce, so that's on the stove. And we bought those wheat pasta noodles-"

He sighs. "Wheat pasta?"

"It's good, Castle. You can't tell the difference," Kate says, glancing back at him over her shoulder, an eyebrow raised as if to ask him why the hell he's way over there.

Why the hell _is_ he way over here?

He strides forward, kisses his mother's proffered cheek, bear hugs his daughter, then drops onto the couch between Kate and Alexis, wriggling to get comfortable, both of them rolling their eyes at him but making room.

Kate slides her finger over his knee, lightly scratching, as Alexis finishes up.

"We're doing feta, fresh spinach-"

"Spinach?" he groans, tilting his head back.

Kate's fingers press into his knee. "Can't complain if you're not making it."

He lifts his head, catches the amusement in her eyes. He has to make himself look away from her, towards his daughter. "True. I guess I'll suffer through. Why you have to go and ruin lasagna with spinach I'll never know."

"It's healthy and good for you," Alexis chirps. "Speaking of what's healthy and good for you - what about this? When did this happen?" She waves her hand between them, eyebrow raised.

Kate's thumb joins her fingers on his knee. "Healthy?" she says with a little laugh. "You think so?"

Castle goes still because he gets that there's more here, there's approval hanging in the balance.

"Well. There's emotionally and spiritually healthy, right? And then there's physically healthy. I don't know about the last one, but the others? Just look at him. Both of you."

Kate shifts her eyes towards him; he drops his hand over hers on his knee and squeezes. "Yeah. I'd say Kate's good for me."

She lifts an eyebrow at him, but he doesn't know what that one means. She turns back to his daughter. "You know I do everything I can to keep him safe."

"Well, yeah, but he's gonna do the same, isn't he? Someone ends up taking the bullet."

His vision tunnels in an instant, heart squeezed tight, and he realizes he's gripping Kate too hard; she's wriggling her fingers and looking at him. He must have made a noise of distress, because her other hand is at his knee as well, soothing.

"Sorry, Dad. I'm sorry," Alexis is saying from his other side, her arms going around his neck and squeezing, not doing much for his air supply. "That just popped out of my mouth."

When he lifts an arm to hug her back, he realizes that Kate is thrumming with tension. But then Alexis is throwing an arm around Kate too, bringing his partner into it, a kind of group hug that's awkward for a moment but actually helps.

Their temples all knock together, so Alexis squeezes and lets go. "I'm sorry, Kate. It's not your fault people are shooting at you. I just - I don't know why I said it."

Kate is watching them both gravely; she flicks her eyes to him, then gives a shrug. "You saw me get shot. You've seen both of us head off into danger. It's normal to be protective and defensive and angry. I understand."

"But not at you," Alexis insists, her face anxious. "You really are good for us."

Us?

"I hope so," Kate answers, her knee shifting closer to his. Some of that tension is draining from her, but she's still all coiled muscles next to him; her grip on his leg hasn't lessened.

Castle wonders at how quiet his mother has been, lifts his eyes to see her watching them carefully. She seems to take that as her cue.

"All right. Alexis, come help me with my lines upstairs. Leave them alone to - do whatever."

Alexis leaves the couch and follows her grandmother to the staircase, giving them a wistful glance over her shoulder as she goes up.

"Where's the box?" Kate asks quietly.

"On the entry table," he murmurs, glancing over at her. She's biting her lower lip. "You okay? Lot of issues going on today."

She nods once. "Good. I'm good. I can handle it. The box is closed, right?"

He gives a soft chuckle, lifts his hand to cradle her face, his heart bursting when she lets her eyes drift shut, then slide back open so slowly. "It's closed, Kate."

She sighs. "What happens next?"

"We have a normal dinner. Eat good food. Talk about our day. Alexis will tell me about school. Mother will be melodramatic."

Kate gives him a ghost of a smile, turns her lips to his palm, brushes lightly. She reaches up and takes his hand, threading their fingers together.

"And then?"

His smile widens.

"And then - we'll see."

He ought to - there are things she should know, since they're doing this. But, oh God, he doesn't want to ruin this. He never wants to chase away that look in her eyes right now, tender and compassionate and loving towards him.

But he's got to at least have the courage she's showed him today. The respect. At least that.

* * *

Kate finds him after dinner rummaging in his bottom desk drawer. Alexis and Martha said they'd do the clean up, even though they cooked, and Kate's taking them up on it.

He jerks his head up at her approach, smiles. "Hey. Dinner was good, huh?" He pulls out a photo he apparently had been looking for, hands it to her.

"Very good. What's this?"

"That photo of me and Alexis," he says with a grin.

She glances down - father and daughter walking hand in hand, playground equipment out of focus. She rubs her thumb over the corner, lifts her head to smile at him. "Cute."

"Of course," he says, leaning back in his chair, smiling at her. More than just cute. Delicious.

She steps in front of him, slides the door shut with the back of her calf, watches his eyes dilate. "What're you doing in here?"

"Looking for that. I thought you wanted to see it."

"Castle," she drawls.

He blinks, seems to feel the charge in the air, coming out of the haze of proud fatherhood. "Yeah?"

"Pictures are great, but I'd rather do this."

She leans over to kiss him, mouth insistent and heavy, body already pressing down into his. He gets to his feet in a moment, his hip bones digging into her, pushing at her. She feels her thighs hit the desktop so she slides back, sits on a pen and something else, lifts a leg to wrap around his thigh.

He grunts into her mouth and bows over her, hand bracing himself on the desk, the other sliding up her shirt, hooking into her bra.

"Should we - maybe do this in your room?" she suggests, hears the breathless anticipation in her voice. The wall between the study and the living room is just open bookshelves; she can't - doesn't want - Alexis and Martha glancing over in time to see her shirt come off. Because everything's coming off. Oh yes.

"Ah, wait," Castle gasps, darting back, his hand still at her waist, his forehead coming down to the cradle of her neck and shoulder.

"No more waiting," she says, hopping off his desk and pushing him back towards his room. "Done with that."

He lowers his mouth for another kiss, nips at her bottom lip with his teeth. She hooks her arm around his neck and presses them closer, using her hips now to nudge him backwards.

"Wait," he mutters, framing her face with his hands as if to stop her. "Something else should happen first."

"What?" she mumbles, reaching up on her toes to get at him. She took her shoes off sometime during dinner, wishes she had them back for leverage. Instead, she lets her hand wander. He grabs for her wrist, gasping.

"Wait. First. Gotta be honest. You shared your secrets, Kate. I should share mine."

Her heart stumbles; she drops back down on her feet. "You don't - there's nothing to make up for, Castle. You weren't the one hiding things."

His hand drops from her face, heavy, and he curls his fingers at her hip, a look of earnestness in his eyes. She comes closer at the tug, her cheek sliding against his. His heart is pounding. Doesn't seem like it's in the good way. The fingers around her wrist draw her hand up to rest at his sternum.

"Castle?"

"I - I haven't told you everything."

She clenches her fist in his shirt. Damn. Not - not now. Not when they're only five feet from his bed.

"Kate. I'm still looking into your mom's case. The sniper. I've only got a few more leads, but-"

Kate lets out a shaky breath, a little laugh of relief. "That's all?"

Her jerks back from her. "What do you mean, that's all? Aren't you - you're not mad?"

Kate smooths her hand down his chest, shakes her head. "No, not mad. I'm not even all that surprised. It's - that's very sweet, Castle. A little stupid to do it alone, but sweet."

"_Sweet?_"

"Well, I did say - I told you it was a wall, it kept me from being the kind of person capable of doing this with you, so you . . .took it upon yourself to knock it down. I think that's sweet." She lifts up and presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw, trails her teeth to his ear. "Remember? I'm also the one who thinks it's sweet that you were jealous of my attention. Strange things get me, Castle."

"Oh," he gulps, his hands tightening on her. "You said - one writer girl. I remember."

"Still am." She smiles and slides her hands up to his shoulders, fingers in his hair, at his ears. The study is dim; she can't see the look in his eyes, but he feels tight with need, maybe some guilt as well. She can overlook this in favor of the bed so very close; they are so close.

She shifts her hands down until she can untuck his shirt, fingertips and thumbs at the soft skin of his waist. "I don't think you need to worry about that wall, Castle."

"I - what?"

She hooks a finger at the button on his jeans, moves to work her mouth over his, ready and hot and rich. He groans and his hands are back at her hips, sliding up under her shirt, already tangled.

"The wall," she murmurs, tonguing his earlobe. "You think I'd be doing this if that wall was a problem?"

He gasps, his hips rocking forward. "But I - there's stuff I need to tell you about the case-"

"Not right now," she murmurs, sliding one knee up. It has never been this difficult to get a man to bed. "Stop stalling."

"Kate," he groans, clutching her close, tight, pulling her against him.

"I love you, Castle. So let's do this next. Forget about the rest."


	7. Chapter 7

**Himitsu-Bako**

* * *

Oh jeez.

He's awake now.

Castle blinks hard in the darkness of his room and clutches at her hips, startled by the smile on her face, the way her body moves over him. His heart is pounding.

"You just - woke me up - like this?"

She laughs at him, shakes her head. "You kinda woke me first, Castle."

"I - I did?" He grunts at the way she - oh man. Oh jeez. "You're gonna have to stop that or this is all over."

"You really want me to stop?" She laughs again and leans over him, hands pressed into the bed just past his ears, her hair swinging forward and curtaining them. A bite of a kiss on his bottom lip, the rocking movement she's doing with her hips, and he has to slide his hands up to press her down against him.

"No, never mind. Don't - ah - don't stop."

She brings her forearms to his chest, her fingers playing over his face, his lips, almost absent-mindedly, like she doesn't know she's doing it. He pushes up against her and her eyes go wide, breath catching. She's beautiful. She's amazing-

She's in love with him too.

* * *

She's in love with him, but she doesn't know the whole truth.

She's in love with him, but he's still got secrets. He tried to tell her, but he got distracted by all his dreams coming true right then and there, distracted by the way she kissed and pushed him back towards his bedroom.

Somehow they've wound up all on his side of the bed. He's lying on his stomach, her head on his shoulder blade, her chest pressed to his back. Pulling his arm out from under his pillow, Castle strokes his fingers along her neck, the farthest he can reach, and smooths the hair from her face.

She sighs and her mouth moves against him. If she drools on him like this, she'll never hear the end of it. He will bring it up every single chance he gets.

Castle cups his hand at her cheek, despite it being awkward in this position, but the way she's draped over him, with abandon and ease, makes him want to cradle her. Protect her. But this is the feeling that's going to get him in trouble, isn't it?

_It's sweet, Castle._

Yeah, he doesn't think she'll-

"Stop thinking so loudly," she groans, turns her face into his back with a huff of breath that brings goose bumps to his skin. Her teeth find him, then her lips soothe even as she wakes.

"Hey," he says softly, smiling even though he can't see her. "Thinking too loudly for you?"

"So loud you woke me up."

He can feel her body curl in and then she rolls off him, snuggling down into the sheets beside him. He can see her getting comfortable. Her eyelids lift; she smiles at him and slides her arm under his, moving closer, her heat against him.

"Hey," she murmurs, her eyes glinting in the darkness of his room. "You wanna talk about it?"

"What?" he says, not even trying very well to hide it. "Yeah. I think I should."

She lifts her thumb to his bottom lip, her fingers uncurl along his jaw. "You sure?"

Is that a warning?

Kate sighs, leans in to kiss him softly. "Don't look at me like that, Castle. Like whatever you're going to say will drive me away. Do you really trust me so little?"

"No," he breathes out, tries to shake his head against his pillow. "Of course not. It's just-"

"No, _but_? - that doesn't sound like you trust me." She's not frowning at him. Actually, she's - is she teasing him?

He turns onto his side to look at her better. "I trust you. I trust that there are things that are sacrosanct to you, Kate. And I trust that I've violated that - on more than one occasion-"

"But here we are," she says intently, her fingers curling behind his ear. "Doesn't that tell you something? You break all my rules, Castle."

His chest aches with it, the way she's looking at him right now, the strength in her eyes. "I do break your rules, don't I? So one more can't hurt."

She laughs at him, raises an eyebrow. "Can't hurt me now. So. Get on with it. Tell me."

Yeah, she says that, but he still doesn't. . .

"Your mom's case."

"Yeah?" She's using her fingers to circle his cheekbone, around and around.

"I started investigating it because-"

"Because you can't keep your nose out of my business?" she says on a smile.

He sighs and untangles their legs, tries to give her room to move, escape, if she needs it."No. Because someone called me."

Kate clenches the nape of his neck and tugs him back. "Someone - someone - wait. What? And where are you going, Castle?" She sounds irritated.

"Not going anywhere. No. Not going," he mumbles. "And it was some guy. Said he was friends with Montgomery, that the Captain sent some files over before - before he died." Castle stops trying to give her space, instead he stay where he is, waits for her.

Kate lets go of his neck, presses her hand to his cheek; his heart is pounding, but she's not moving away. "You didn't tell me about that."

"I wasn't supposed to tell you. Your life - the lives of Montgomery's family - this guy could only keep you all safe, protected, if you stopped looking into your mom's case."

"So he says."

Castle winces. "So he says, yes."

"And you took his word for it?" she huffs at him.

"In a way. I started looking into it on my own, Kate. If you couldn't, then I would. I asked you to stop to - to keep you safe - but I kept looking because I know it's important."

She narrows her eyes at him, fingers scratching lightly on his cheek and down to his neck. "So tell me. How does asking me to stop equate with not telling me?" she hisses, shoving on him.

He rocks onto his back, but she's crowding closer to him; she looms over him, her hands spread on his bare chest. "I - I - Kate?"

"Why couldn't you tell me?" she says, and in a completely unexpected move, she bows her head over him, her forehead to his sternum. "You told me to stop but you didn't tell me why. You could've told me why."

He draws his arms around her, his heart pounding fiercely. He has no idea what this means, her body pressed against his, her shoulders up around her ears. "I was afraid to tell you."

Her next word comes from the cavern of her hair, muffled against his chest. "But why?"

"Because you'd jump right back down that hole, Kate. Don't tell me - nine months ago? - you wouldn't have been all over this."

She lifts her head to look at him. No tears. No sad face, just exasperation. "All over this?" An eyebrow quirk, the smirk of her lips.

He laughs, breathless with relief. "You're making a joke? Are you kidding me? This is probably the biggest news I've ever had to break to someone, and you're joking."

"It's a defense mechanism," she deadpans. "You should know that."

"I'm rubbing off on you?" he grins.

"More than one way." She grins back, bites her bottom lip. "Okay, be serious again."

"Yeah, sorry, you've totally broken the mood."

"I can't help it. I mean, Castle, come on. You tell me that you got some mysterious phone call last summer, that the guy told you to keep me off the case, but you couldn't tell me about it? That's ridiculous. And I think you know how stupid that was too, how dangerous. You've been beating yourself up over it for the last - what did you say? nine months? - so what should I say to that?"

"Say you forgive me?" he says, smiling brightly at her but shame flaring in his guts.

"I'm not forgiving you. You're not sorry." Her fingers stroke his cheeks, her forearms balanced on his chest. Entirely dissonant with the steel in her voice.

He sighs. "No, I'm not sorry."

"See? So what am I supposed to do here?"

"I don't know," he says with a shrug. "I just - I needed to tell you."

"So you've told me. I still think it's stupid. And I don't want you to do it anymore." She traces the lines of his collarbone with her fingertips, her eyes not on his. "You hear me? If you need forgiveness, then just stop. Stop looking. Stop putting yourself in the crosshairs. We'll figure out something else."

His chest tightens at the touch of her fingers, the strident belligerence in her voice, the difference between the way she's caressing him and the way her voice sounds.

"Okay," he says, lifting his hands to stroke her back, letting himself touch her again.

"Okay?" she murmurs, an eyebrow raised. "See how easy that was, Castle? You couldn't have told me this any time before now?"

"Probably should have."

"Uh-huh," she says, and then her mouth closes over his, light and delicate. She lifts up to look at him, and the vulnerability in her eyes makes him breathless. "You probably should have. And I probably should have called you last summer, probably should have let you help, probably should have spoken up about what I remembered. So we're even, Castle."

"My one to your three? How is that even?"

She laughs and smiles down at him, her fingers curling in the hair at his temples. "Hush. Go with it. We're letting each other off the hook."

He grins and lifts his head up to kiss her, her lips so warm and encouraging, her body draped over his.

She breaks away from him, cradling his face, then slides her hands down his chest, lifts herself off of him.

"Where you going?"

"I'm hungry. And I think your mom has been hovering out there, waiting to talk to you."

He groans and slaps a hand over his face. "Are you kidding me?"

"I got up to go to the bathroom and I'm pretty sure she scurried off-"

"Oh jeez, this is mortifying."

But Kate laughs and pries his hand away from his eyes, tugs him to a sitting position. "It's not so bad. She's just looking out for you. When she asks you if I'm sure, you can tell her-"

Castle stops her with a rough kiss, his hand at the back of her neck. When he pulls away, she's smiling again. "I'll tell her you're sure. And that you love me."

She bites her lip, still grinning. The moon washes out the lines of her face, makes her look like the woman he met four years ago. Just for a second. And then she grins, the curls in her hair slide over her shoulder as she reaches for him.

"I do love you," she echoes. "So - nothing to worry about."

* * *

Kate watches him leave the room, slides his tshirt on over her head. It smells like fresh laundry. She puts her nose to her shoulder, closes her eyes, but her stomach growls.

Okay. Midnight snack, now that he's waylaid his mother.

She gets to her feet, trips over the edge of the comforter in the floor, has to catch herself on the doorway with a huff of breath. Ow. Her knee smarts. She probably bruised it; she smacked it hard.

Her back is bruised too. And other things ache. She bites her lip to hold back a laugh, heads out through his study-

He said he was working on her mother's case.

She pauses in the darkness, eyes flickering over his desk. Did he - is it here? The things he's found, has he just piled them up in a file folder or has he made his own murder board, just like hers, hidden in the window?

She lifts her eyes to the dark night just beyond, but of course there's no timeline, no photographs, no red question marks. Somewhere else then.

"You looking for it?"

She startles and glances over her shoulder, sees him in the doorway. She sighs. "Sort of."

He says nothing to that, just sighs and drops his head.

"Not like you think, Castle," she murmurs, ignoring the desk and heading for him. "Just wondering."

"But that's how it starts, right?" he says, lifting his head as she gets closer. "How it always starts. Just wondering."

"Yeah," she admits, her chest tightening at the resignation on his face. "It does. It starts like that."

"You see now why I didn't tell you."

Of course she does. She understands better than he might think. She knows how she gets. And after she was shot, she would've - well, if he had asked her to stop, she would have stopped. She really would have. Because she knew then that he loved her, knew he'd only ask because it was important. It might have taken her some time to let it go, but. . .

Yeah, he maybe should've have told her.

"Do you want to see it?"

"Yeah." She presses her lips together, her throat thick, closing up. "Yeah, but no. Don't show me."

"Kate," he sighs. "This won't work with us if I'm holding out. It makes it unbalanced."

She steps in closer, her fingers closing around his wrists, his hands limp at his sides. "Show me later then."

"I'll have to."

"I know."

"I don't want to."

"I know."

"But you need to see it," he continues. "And it's not fair of me to hide it from you."

"Yeah," she sighs, leaning into him to press her lips to his neck. "But can you feed me first?"

He chokes on a laugh. "Yeah. I can do that."

"You talk to your mother?"

"I told her to make herself scarce."

"Castle," she laughs, glances over his shoulder as if she might see his mother sneaking up the stairs.

"You sure you don't want to see it now?"

"We'll look at the case after you feed me. Actually, no, revise the agenda-"

"The agenda?" he laughs.

"I got plans for you." She grins at him, lifts up on her toes to kiss his mouth. "Let's eat first, then look at this sometime in the morning. But only after I've had my wicked way with you tonight."

He laughs at her, but his arms crush her against him, his mouth in her hair. "I love you."

Her heart catches; she draws her arms up to tighten around his ribs, holding on. When she opens her eyes, he's stroking the hair back from her face, so tender and reverent and happy.

How happy he is.

"God, I love you, Kate."

She smiles at him. "I hear you."

"Finally," he smirks.

She thumps his ear, then uses her thumb to trace the edge of his lip. She leans in to kiss him softly. "I love you too."

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay in posting - I got a sinus infection/allergy cold and it has only now let up. Whew, I can sort of breathe again.

Also, if you've subscribed to my ebook, Fences, there was a small delay in getting a login email. Apparently gmail shut down the publishers' accounts! But they've transferred everything over, and it should be working. If you still haven't received a subscriber login, then please contact me.

If you haven't read the free first chapter of my ebook, please do! (Take out the spaces): fences1saybooks . pressbooks . com/


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